Climate in Spain –
Heat wave and risk of “very high to extreme” fire
The whole country is on alert on Friday, for the thirteenth day in a row, including Cantabrie, northern region, hitherto spared.
People protect themselves from heat in the shade of a tree during the extreme heat wave that strikes Seville, where temperatures exceed 40 degrees on August 12, 2025.
AFP/Cristina Quicler
All of Spain is on Friday on a heat wave and the front of fire continues to worry the authorities, especially as themeteorological agency has issued a “very high to extreme” risk notice for a large part of the country.
The whole peninsula remains on a heat wave for the thirteenth consecutive day, and even Cantabria, the northern region, hitherto spared, will experience a peak of temperatures that can exceed 40 degrees, said the National Meteorological Agency AEMET, warning against the risk of fires “very high or extreme in most of the country […] Until Monday included ”.
The country has experienced a very intense fire season with 157,501 hectares already reduced to ashes since the start of the year, according to data from the European Information System on Forest Fires (Effis). However, we are still far from the 306,000 ha smoke in 2022.
Spain, which has already recorded three deaths in these fires, including two young volunteers who have perished while trying to turn the fire in Castile-et-León (north-west), received the reinforcement from two Canadians sent by France on Thursday morning.
This is where a large part of the attention is carried, because the region has a dozen very active lights.
Train line and cut roads
The train line connecting Madrid to Galicia (northwest) is still cut as well as a dozen road axes in the country.
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Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that “today will be very difficult today, with an extreme risk of new fires. The government remains mobilized with all the resources to contain the flames. Thank you, eternally, to those who fight on the front line to protect us, ”he wrote on X.
The fires are at the heart of the political debate in recent days, the two main parties, the socialist socialists of the PSOE and conservatives of the PP, stripping their management in a country where the extinction of forest fires is, in principle, the competence of the regions, and not of the central government, which intervenes in the event of a large -scale disaster and can mobilize the army, in this case, last days and called in reinforcements in many regions of the country.
The PP accuses the government of having reduced the number of air means, while the PSOE defends it and criticizes the leaders of the opposition “absent” from the field in full fire, accusing some of being on vacation while their region is plagued by flames.
Improvements in Greece
In Greece, which also faces a wave of fires, the situation has improved on the majority of fronts due to a drop in temperatures and the intensity of the wind, firefighters said.
The latter are however mobilized around Patras – the third city in the country which has 250,000 inhabitants – in front of “scattered” homes and remain vigilant as to possible recovery of fires.
The most active fire remains that of the island of Chios, in the northeast of the Aegean Sea. Eight planes are always deployed to try to end it.
In the south of the Aegean Sea, in Attica and in the Peloponnese, the risk of fire remains very high, warned civil protection on Friday.
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